The New Way

In a previous post, I discussed my hope that the report from the Premier’s Technology Council on A Vision for 21st Century Learning would lead to conversations around the province. My real goal is that the discussions go much deeper than the one report; rather, we have sustained, meaningful conversations about k-12 education focussed on ideas. I want to come back to this, with some more hopes. Here are some guidelines I hope these conversations and, really, all conversations we have about school reform, follow:

If you want to participate, you have to put your name to ideas — we have way too many people, particularly in the digital space — posting anonymously. We need to say “this is not okay”. Everyone is welcome to participate — but put a name and face to be part of the conversation.

There is value for ideas from inside the system (students, teachers, parents) as well as ideas from outside the system — it is really the ideas that matter.

We agree there is no such thing as good guys and bad guys when it comes to education. That is the old way — education is far too important to cast some in white hats and others in black hats.

We need to avoid saying “We can’t do X until ____ (fill in government, universities etc.) does Y”.

We don’t use “We are already doing it” as a reason to end the conversation. While it may be true we are already doing it (fill in the progressive educational idea), we are usually not doing it consistently, in ways that we can assess how successful “it” is, throughout the system.

We act with urgency (we see how quickly changes are happening around us) but not urgently (where changes are not fully discussed, and people are not fully engaged).

The optimism and curiosity that comes through in so much being written, right now, is very exciting. Hopefully, 2011 will be a year we find new ways to look at education, and use digital space to have big conversations about big ideas, and we move forward from ideas to action.

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Thank you for a thoughtful post to start the new year, Chris. Regie Routman has been telling teachers to teach with a sense of urgency for a long time, and it’s time we also lead with a sense of urgency in our schools. During the holidays I had several conversations with people in government and private business… and I learned that we are very fortunate to be in the business of education. We have far more freedom to change, and we work with many progressive thinkers. I believe we have the opportunity to move from ideas to action now, and I look forward to the process. Your post inspires me and gives me courage to move to action in a more public way.

I like this – we are lucky to be in education. While we often lament the parts we think are not in our control, there are a lot of things in our control and we can move the ideas forward. Hopefully more of us will find the courage to move these discussions to more public venues in 2011.

I really enjoy following you on Twitter – thanks for taking the time to comment on this blog!

• We agree that TTWWADI – “That’s The Way We Always Do It” is not a reason to continue on the same path. We need to recognize that flexibility is key and that change/true reform requires us to go out of our comfort zone and do things differently.

For instance, why fill a new classroom with individual student desks? Why not have everything on wheels? Why have a unidirectional ‘front’ of the room? Why have the whole day set up with classes in blocks? Why have the whole day divided by age-grouped classes? Why grade all subjects?

There are so many things we should question, and if we aren’t looking to do things truly differently, then perhaps we aren’t really talking about reform, but rather redecoration.

Thanks Dave. It is interesting that so many of us woke up on the first day of 2011 with similar thoughts. There is a real sense of let’s get on with it coming through in so much of what I have read today. There is also a sense we should not get stuck in the old thinking that always slows us down. Your suggestion reminds me of another – “we already tried that”. I find that technology allows us to do some things that we may have even tried a couple years ago – but were not successful because the ncessary technology was not present. I am convinced the portfolio initiative would be completely different now that it was seven years ago because we now have the technology to do what we wanted to do then, but couldn’t in a doable way.

Thanks for this Chris. Your point of open, public conversation is an important one. If we are to take meaningful steps forward around these ideas we will have to have frank, public discussions. I suspect others may be like me, who because of my public role, tend to reserve my thoughts for the Christmas dinner table with family and close friends. The polite smile suffices at other times. If others do the same it is a shame. After all, we are the very people with the experience and skills to make the necessary changes. Odd that we would be the ones to remain silent.

Most of the ideas people are getting behind will clearly benefit children and their learning. They are loaded with politics however, and will require hard, honest discussion to move on. What will it take for us to have that discussion?

Thank you, Chris, for creating this space for hosting open discussion on educational reform in B.C. For those not familiar with the reform ideas of UK-based John Abbott and The 21st Century Learning Initiative, and his work in B.C., you might like to check them out at http://www.21learn.org/

In their New Year message (http://www.21learn.org/site/blog/a-hopeful-new-year-message-to-all-those-on-the-initiative’s-contact-list), the following reference to B.C. is made offering interesting potential: “…The third project is still tentative and involves attracting those 17 – 18 year olds who are already interested in the possibility of becoming teachers and are anxious to take an appropriate gap year between school and university. The Initiative is having discussions with various groups in British Columbia, Canada where the ideas of the Initiative are best being implemented, about a scheme which would split such a year into two parts. They would act as student teachers working with some excellent teachers in the Gulf Island School District to the south of Vancouver Island, supported by an extensive programme run through one of the universities in introducing them to all the research involved in the “grain of the brain”. The second part of the year would be spent in a school in one of the developing countries in Africa or elsewhere. They would then return after such an inspirational year to study for three years at university in their particular chosen subjects but this experience should lead them to be far better prepared for a postgraduate teacher training experience…”

We are entering an exciting time for educational reform in B.C. at all levels and with so much potential, but I feel genuine reform will only take place if all stake holders, including parents, teachers, administrators, union officials, Ministry of Education, government and university officials, and community members choose to open the door to participate in open, respectful and positive discussion focussing on meaningful educational reform in B.C. For this to happen, all parties will need to shed any former biases, reservations or protective behaviours they may have held in the past while keeping the goals of reform in mind working together for the betterment of all.

Thanks David, for the TTWWADI – my new favorite acronym in a profession filled with them. I’d like to comment about some educational assumptions or TTWWADI’s (hereby pronounced “twha-DEES”) and what alternatives might exist. I’m sure my alternatives are second-best to yours…

1 – Kids should be grouped by age
The alternative – Group kids with kids of other ages, and keep them with the same teacher for many years.

2 – 1 teacher + 20 or 30 kids = learning
The alternative – Make 2 teachers work together (maybe even in the same room) to help kids acheive the critical learnings. Or maybe 3 or 4? Synergy anyone???

3 – Technology is not always innovation
The alternative – technology is defined as a tool created to do a job better, therfore a hammer is a great technology for building a house as opposed to a rock. Innovation implies doing something in a new way. Powerpoint is just another way to do teacher-directed learning. To be innovative, post the ppt. on your website or blog and have the kids learn independently with it.

4 – Report Cards are important for communication.
The alternative – giving parents real-time access to information about their child’s progress through technology (we already have the capacity through BCeSIS, Google Docs, Moodle, or many other tools)

If the Premier’s Technology Council is serious about reform, challenging these assumptions will help us make these changes:
Learning information to Learning to Learn
Data to Discovery
One-size-fits-all to Tailored learning
Testing to Assess to assessing to learn
Classroom learning to lifelong learning

“2 – 1 teacher + 20 or 30 kids = learning
The alternative – Make 2 teachers work together (maybe even in the same room) to help kids acheive the critical learnings. Or maybe 3 or 4? Synergy anyone???”

I love this idea! My daughter’s Kinder class is structured like this (albeit with regular class sizes shared by two teachers). But what I find most hopeful is that these two teachers have opened their doors to each other and they collaborate in much of what they do. The students migrate back and forth from room to room, depending on what they are doing, and benefit from two very different teaching styles and personalities.

Chris, I really like these guidelines! I think that they can be applied to discussions at any level with anyone about almost any educational topic. I like that general notion of challenging ourselves to look at what we are currently doing to see if we can do things better. Just like the kids we work with, we should constantly be reflecting and redesigning in the quest to improve.
Thanks for the post!

Chris, another great post! This shows a progressive mindset towards the beneficial reform our education system is on the cusp of and it shows great leadership. Congratulations! It also gives rise to a paradigm shift that is necessary to support the reform: the issue of sides. There are no sides as the reform is intended for the betterment of all yet some still resist change because it is uncomfortable. I would also like to give kudos to David Truss for addressing the TTWWADI excuse as a perceived good reason to continue on the path we are on. In fact, it is no reason at all! Again, excellent post and excellent responses by all too!

Thanks Bernie – it is great to connect with you here. Looking forward to your new Assistant Superintendent, Scott Robinson, a former colleague of mine from Coquitlam joining us in the digital space and in the conversation. Hopefully we can keep working to get past the issue of “sides”. It does feel very outdated.